


Turnstile

by hologramblue



Category: Shin Megami Tensei Series, 真女神転生IV FINAL | Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hologramblue/pseuds/hologramblue
Summary: You can tell her anything, you know.





	

He wakes to confusion, but right away it's just not _enough_. There's an empty ringing space in Nanashi's consciousness right beside his pulse in his ears - it should be filled up with coughing, spluttering, pain, anything to pull the impossibility of what just happened out of him.

But there's nothing - just a silence in him and around him, pushing the murmuring of demons far away. He could lie here as long as the silence lasted, waiting for a sign, for purposeless purpose to come back from wherever it fled to and yank him back to his feet.

He takes a deep breath. His chest doesn't hurt at all. It's _cold cold cold_.

The pavement is rough on his fingers when they drag across the ground, rougher than it's ever been, every touch a spark _(you're alive)_ , and the groan of his muscles when he gets his hands under him an echoing sound that blares through the emptiness, taking up all his attention for a flashbulb moment. It passes and leaves negatives under his eyelids.

-

_(hate to break it to you, kid-)_

-

Before - _it_ happened, fear would unfurl hot and prickly from just under his sternum. Now, abruptly, it just drapes over him like a too-big coat, moving spidery-cold over his shoulders; he sees Asahi fumbling with a dead man's phone, and the clarity in his chest would scare him if he could get his fear to break skin.

She doesn't know. She doesn't know, she doesn't know a thing, she's just happy to see him alive, the relief catches the grief before it can pull her all the way to the ground, and if there's a speck of normalcy here for Nanashi to plug the emptiness with it's in the tears she cries and the tears she doesn't.

Between the gate and the elevator her elbow catches around his and their fingers lace. They are afraid and they are alive,

_(hate to break it-)_

together, and they'll smother the fear between their clasped hands until they're just alive.

_(-kid, you're-)_

-

_You can tell her anything, you know._

-

The emptiness is still there when he wakes up.

Asahi is already awake, of course. He can hear her moving around, making the same noises she makes getting ready for any other day.

_(does grief feel empty)_

She's taking it well. There's not a person in Kinshi-cho - perhaps not in all of Tokyo - who hasn't encountered death. They're one of the few who've never lost someone personally, but grief is still a familiar routine.

_(who are you grieving?)_

The marks on his arm are still there, glowing like long fluorescent bulbs under his skin. Asahi must not be able to see them, like she couldn't see the light blossoming in the collapsed corridor by the elevator. She'd have said something by now if she could. She's nosy. They don't just get into each other's business, anyhow; they exist in the scope of each other's business to begin with.

_(it's wasted on the living)_

Nanashi closes his eyes, and stares at the bottom of the upper bunk through his eyelids.

-

_(-you, kid, -)_

-

"Asahi..."

"What's up?" 

"..." 

"Nanashi?" 

"Be careful." 

"Always. You too."

-

_You know,_

-

_(-you're dead.)_  


**Author's Note:**

> On one hand I've been hissing _"tell her"_ at the game for the past three hours, but on the other, I can totally understand why he might not want to.
> 
> This by all rights should be a few sections longer than it is to really get across a complete story thought but 1) I'm in a game fugue and can't remember the exact details of how things went down at this point and 2) I just kind of tapped out creatively after this much. I haven't written fic in _years_. I am caked in rust.
> 
> RP usually satisfies my transformative fiction urges but sometimes you just have a feeling about characters' feelings and you've gotta try to convey that feeling, you feel me


End file.
